Ice on the River
by The Golden Koi
Summary: The two lovers have kept themselves from sight and suspicion for several months, until a whisper in the wind comes to Byakuya during meditation. As a hidden foe works allies against allies, the true bond of love is tested. xIchiRukix Sequel to Deeper Care
1. Simmering Silence

A/N: **This is the sequel to Deeper Care**, but it also has an independent plot, so feel free to read them both how you see fit if you read the any of my other stories at all!

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_Simmering Silence_

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Flitting fragrances of rich earth and fresh flora swirled through the open space like a whirlwind, almost visible but just barely sly enough to trick the eye. The mahogany strength that held the small temple aloft seemed to breathe the aromas, deepening the wisdom held in its beams with every passing breeze. The sparse grass that surrounded the steps to the airy building whispered with a papyrus crinkle that shivered through the air, the bamboo swaying with a hypnotic quietness, like icy rain upon glass.

Byakuya let the winds whisk away the weight of his duties, feeling light and bodiless in his meditation. His raven hair waved in silent swirls as he lifted his chin into the nonjudgmental winds, breathing in the crisp, clean breeze as if being granted new life. The lightening currents almost pushed a smile upon his features, but merely teased him as everything was blown away gently, leaving only a nameless consciousness for the captain to enjoy.

A whisper of breath blew across his lips, hotter than that of the young spring blossoming around him. His eyes opened, expressionless but still wary, contemplating the ghostly sensation as the breeze became starkly cold. He watched the air dance about him like pixies fiddling with the voiceless trees, the sleeping hills beyond Seireitei. The frigid wind rounded, plaguing his ears once again with passionate pleas, whispers of lovers beyond his realm of reality. His senses sharpened, listening intently to what he was meant to hear.

_Rukia…_ Despite his meditative calm, Byakuya's jaw tightened with slow realization. Ichigo's voice had found him in his deepest contemplation. Her name dripped from his voice like an ache, a tense desire permeating his raw voice. The captain listened to the wind carry away the loose thought as if it had never been. It was a secret between them that the breeze was almost afraid to let slip from the clouds.

As the wind slithered away in an fearful slink, Byakuya's eyes hardened, his hands dropping from their upturned, receiving gesture into tightly balled fists. Though his face mirrored none of his anger as he eased himself off his meditative cushion, he felt urgency in his own step, something he rarely felt. A sense of dread that wasn't so familiar to him, though the few times he recognized it in the past had become scars upon his memory.

The fear that began to boil up in his stomach wasn't one of battle or reprimand. It was too familiar and warm to be either. Hisana, a vision that he often found drifting within his thoughts seemed foremost in his consciousness, a sweet, sorrowful whisper that acted like a deafening yearning for her to be flesh and blood once again. He pushed the apparition away tenderly, always sure to be careful with her memory. The captain stepped slowly from the temple, his hand on hilt.

As Byakuya walked back to his quarters, the urgency he had felt intensified with the sound of the wood beneath his feet. It was nostalgic in a leaden way, the silence around him adding to the dread of kneeling next to his love's bedding, holding her cold hand, her eyes closed with a finality that more closely resembled a doll than a living beauty. Ichigo would know this sadness someday. If his love for Rukia continued as it seemed to have been, he would share the glint of a love lost that was too easy to recognize once one possessed it themselves.

Byakuya could feel the pressure of Hisana's death upon his eyes, deepened the black of his orbs. He could feel the solemn sorrow that weighed down his face as if he could never feel extremes, never smile as long as he continued to exist in that weary husk. Despite his distaste for their unconsummated relationship, Byakuya had many reasons for not allowing his sister's love to grow any stronger. He knew that while he understood love and its bitter sorrows, its wrathful compromises and sacrifices, he had to uphold his duties first. It was up to Rukia to find ways to obey her family and shinigami honour, and his duty to make sure she never strayed.

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A/N: I know, short, but I've had a very rough couple of days and parts of the original chapter were lost when power went out last night. In any case, it will be better in chapters to come! 


	2. Surveillance

A/N: Hmm… "Pink bats on a helium high"…If only I could use that quote in this story, but for some reason I don't find the opportunity arising anytime soon.

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_Surveillance

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Rough bark dug into his knees slowly as gravity and time worked against him. The strength of the tree trunk supported his weight without a qualm, but the cragged surface was hard to bear for much longer than a few hours, sending throbbing aches through his hands and feet as he repeatedly adjusted his position. Frustration was becoming hard to ignore now. He felt himself growl with impatience as a small, young branch he had hoped to balance his hand upon snapped under his weight. The smooth, green twig fell to the grass beneath him and he cursed while trying to cease his unsavory wobbling.

Bits of ashen wood tumbled from the canopy as a songbird bobbled along a tree branch, cooing at its young in a scraggly nest, moss hanging from its edges. He glanced up irritably as the refined, high-pitch tweet of the tiny fowl seemed to magnify with every repetitive peep, finally resting in his eardrums like a shriek, horribly off-tune. He grunted and covered his ears with the collar of his gi, hoping that as he balanced on his aching heels, hunched over as if crowding his body beneath one small leaf to hide from the pitter patter of a fresh rain, that bird would fall and die.

The sound of a bell far in the distance caught the affection of the mountains as it echoed softly through the valley, brushing against the surfaces of solemn, sleepy buildings with the affable swirls of a downy feather on a sea breeze. As its sound faded, he could feel the vibrations of the air calm, the world quiet and lonesome. It had been far too long, he thought, since he had a real companion.

Just as his mind began to wander in a direction that hastened him away from the scrapes upon his legs and arms, a familiar screech piped up once more from above. He closed his eyes in an attempt to imitate his master's calm expression, but found it a frustrating façade that only made the anger contained within him bang with a greater ferocity against the confines of his mind. He broke a piece of old, worn bark from the branch supporting him and sent it soaring through the air, only to hear it smash unsatisfactorily against the bottom of the branch on which the mother bird bounced. She flittered her wings anxiously and took flight, leaving a nest of protesting chicks behind. With an exhausted sigh, he turned to stare at the asphalt below and pulling his gi like a hood over his head, attempted to drown out the sounds of that damnable songbird's spawn.

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_She seemed surreal to him. A living dream, barely confined by the boundaries of her body. The wind rustled her hair like silk curtains in an echoing palace, a mesmerizing sight that forced one into reflection, as if looking at someone who didn't exist in a mirror beyond their own image. It was a soothing loneliness, an emptiness that was meant to be there. If she never existed at all, he'd still feel at peace, because the abyss of her eyes told him she would never belong in this world. She would never be tamed into the cultures of the living._

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"Kuchiki-san!" a familiar voice bellowed from behind. They turned in time to brace against the onslaught. Keigo ran straight into Ichigo's chest, a thud resonating through the immediate area like dropping a sack of potatoes.

"Keigo-kun! Are you alright?" Rukia asked with a small yell of surprise. The boy nodded and stood, a little red in the face but otherwise unscathed. He brushed some cultivated, tan dust from his trousers as an entourage of their peers passed by, their shoes scuffing the ground lazily, their laughter bubbling up in the air. He spun out of the way awkwardly as a third year passed by nonchalantly on his bike, texting with his elbows resting on the handlebars. The three stood together in the middle of the entrance to their school, watching him ride by, his front tire whining quietly as he rounded the corner out of sight.

"I was wondering what you're doing after classes today, Kuchiki-san!" Keigo resumed, his voice as bright and gawky as it had ever been. Ichigo couldn't help but allow a smirk to reach his eyes. He threw his school blazer over one shoulder and looked off over the city at the mountains, relishing the rare scent of cut grass drifting by.

"I was planning to finish my homework and go to bed early. Tomorrow's the beginning of exams, after all!" Rukia replied, her hands folded neatly around the handle of her small backpack. Keigo laughed nervously as he registered the meaning of her words. He had never been one to test well and often thought of the lack of homework as a godsend, not a chance to further his studies. With a small sigh of defeat, he turned to Ichigo, a pleading look in his eyes as he stared up at the man before him.

"How's the arcade sound, Ichigo?"

"'Fraid I can't either. I was planning on studying for English tomorrow morning," he said coolly, his gaze not deterred from the vast, mountainous skyline, which was surprisingly gentle against the cool blue horizon. Keigo whimpered briefly, but found neither yielding to his protests. With a wave, he left to find another friend who may be willing to whisk away the afternoon with arcade guns and gold tokens.

A faint churning rumble reached Ichigo's ears and he blinked, his eyes straying to Rukia's blushing face. He grinned and fought desperately to hide the adoration he felt radiating from his gaze. With a subtle nod, he led her from the school on their usual route home.

"Did you not eat lunch again?" he asked after a moment's silence. Rukia folded her arms delicately across her chest and looked away.

"Orihime was absent. She's usually my source of nourishment during the day," she explained with a curt nod, her head held high. Ichigo's scowl deepened as he let his eyes stray across her features, small and fragile.

"I don't like that you've lost so much weight, Rukia," he confessed quietly. The urge to touch her skin or hold her hand was so strong that as his mind strayed, he almost felt that he was reaching, feeling her skin beneath his fingers. He blinked away the sensation. She snorted in defense and turned to hold his glare.

"I haven't lost weight and it doesn't matter much in this gigai anyway, really," she retaliated, a bit of a whip lashing from her tongue. Ichigo sighed silently and turned, looking at the road stretching before them.

"At least let me give you money so you can buy your own food when you need it," he said after a long pause. Rukia turned to reprimand him, but found that the glint of caring she saw in his features was enough to melt away the steel in her eyes. She nodded and let her hands fall away from her chest, any anger that she might have felt having faded like smoke on a breezy day.

They walked in silence for many minutes at such a proximity that every few paces their arms would touch, sending a small wave of heat through Ichigo's body. Their fingers found each other upon occasion, but only for fleeting moments in which they explored the contours of the other's hand and wrist. It was a screaming contentment that Ichigo was proud of despite the restrictive awareness that they maintained a cautious distance in public. It renewed the meaning of every day he spent in Rukia's company, every touch an electric sensation that was to be reveled in, never taken advantage of.

The sounds of the world around them fell into a dampened hum, like mercury searching endlessly for like substances. Vortex forces seemed to pull at the echoes Rukia felt in her mind's abyss, coaxing the color from her vision as she delved in her reverie. Only the mesmerizing rhythm of their feet beneath them, strangely organic, the sound of rubber against asphalt, found their ears as they strolled purposefully down the familiar path back to Ichigo's home.

The silent trance that Rukia had created through contemplation cracked with an almost violent force at the sound of a branch above them snapping with unnatural crispness. She snapped her head toward the clatter, her hand immediately ripped from the closeness she had allowed herself to enjoy mere moments before. Leaden dread fell with a sickening thud in the pit of her stomach as her eyes scanned a large maple across the road. Her cheeks became hot with apprehension and she drew a sharp breath as Ichigo placed a concerned hand upon her shoulder.

"What's wrong? Did you sense something? A hollow?" he asked, a tone of duty dripping from his warm voice. Rukia shook her head slowly and turned away, ripping her eyes from the rough, catching textures of the tree looming peacefully above them, a slight breeze bustling casually by.

"I just thought I heard something. I'm sure it was nothing," she explained as they continued down the road. Ichigo said nothing with an air of complete acceptance, knowing after much trial that Rukia's word was as good as gold, stronger than steel. However, he couldn't help but notice that she maintained a farther distance, shoving a hand in one of the pockets on her blazer as she swung her bag back and forth from the other. The silence no longer seemed comfortable to the shinigami, walking side by side. Indeed it seemed to have almost become hostile, a forced detachment that worried Ichigo.

Rukia had lost too much weight, he told himself. She had become too weary, too pale. Perhaps what she felt wasn't simply…nothing.

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A/N: It's official. I'm writing a oneshot so that I can add the pink bat comment…Look out for it! Hopefully it'll be funny.

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